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What’s the Matter With California?

Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesGovernor Arnold Schwarzenegger at a news conference on Wednesday, hours before an agreement on a new state budget was approved.

Update | 7:20 p.m. While many American states have struggled with problems caused by the economic slowdown, the signs have been out there for a while that California is in danger of imploding — sinking into itself, collapsing under the weight of its problems. Though it finally passed a budget today, it is moving ahead with a plan to force more than 200,000 state employees to take unpaid furloughs to save state money.

So the news that a 25-foot-wide sinkhole had opened under Interstate 215 near the town of Murrieta, south of Los Angeles, on Wednesday, shutting down traffic across all lanes of the highway, did little to break the end-of-times vibe that the state’s residents have been trying to shake off.

Asked today about the 6-foot-deep divot in Murrieta, Rose Melgoza, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation said, “Yes, I suppose it’s just one more thing going wrong.”

While Ms. Melgoza’s department dispatched an assessment team to the area “to figure out how we will temporarily shore it up and reopen the freeway or whether we will have to close it long-term to fix it,” the state’s legislators could use some shoring up themselves, after spending several recent nights sprawled across their desks as the wrangling over the budget impasse kept up day and night. A compromise finally attracted the bare minimum votes needed in the State Senate just before 7 a.m. Pacific time.

After five days of intense, nearly nonstop negotiations over how to close a $42 billion gap, California state senators agreed early Thursday morning on a budget that raises taxes, cuts deeply into services and borrows far into the future, leaving nearly every person in the state scathed in some way.

The Los Angeles Times reports from Sacramento that the budget compromise finally cleared the necessary two-thirds-majority hurdle in the Senate after Democratic leaders and California’s Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, reached a deal with one holdout senator:

Sen. Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria provided the final Republican vote needed to pass a spending plan, which includes more than $12 billion in tax hikes. In exchange, Democrats agreed to rewrite election rules that Maldonado said had allowed the Capitol to become paralyzed by partisanship, leading the state to the brink of financial ruin.

Gail Collins wrote in an Op-Ed column in The New York Times on Wednesday night that:

Maldonado has always denied that his political ambitions had anything to do with his inability to make up his mind about the budget. Nevertheless, one of his ongoing demands has been to eliminate money for new office furniture for his mortal enemy, the current controller, John Chiang.

The Los Angeles Times noted that on Wednesday, Mr. Maldonado seemed ready to end his opposition to the budget compromise “after lunching on salmon and swordfish with Schwarzenegger at an Italian restaurant a few blocks from the Capitol.”

As chance would have it, sinkholes and the small town of Murrieta were already on the minds of California’s legislators as they struggled this week to win the votes of anti-tax Republicans for the measure. As Michael Rothfeld and Eric Bailey reported in The Los Angeles Times today:

Republicans hold only 15 of the state Senate’s 40 seats. But they wield significant influence, because two-thirds of lawmakers are needed to approve state budgets, and that requires some G.O.P. votes.

The senators hail mostly from the smaller cities and towns of California, where farming and industry drive the economy, cities are often viewed as sinkholes for state tax dollars, and regulations such as environmental restrictions are seen as an impediment to success.

The G.O.P. senators’ new leader, Dennis Hollingsworth of Murrieta, was born and raised on a Riverside County dairy farm in a town of 6,000 residents; he worked early on selling frozen bull semen to dairymen and later as a representative for an association of farmers and ranchers.

And the traffic on California’s roadways is more central to the state’s politics than outsiders might understand. As Michael Lewis explained six years ago in an article for The New York Times Magazine on California politics, the recall of Mr. Schwarzenegger’s predecessor, Gray Davis, who was kicked out of office after a petition drive, succeeded in no small part because of backing from John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, the hosts of California’s highest rated drive-time talk radio program.

Briefly stated, the theory goes like this: Conservative radio hosts thrive on a kind of populist anger at politicians that is not terribly different from the road rage that drivers stuck in traffic feel for other motorists. As Mr. Lewis wrote in 2003:

John and Ken started to care about state politics — when politics finally accommodated what they call their “tone.” “The challenge is to hold onto the tone,” John says. Asked to describe the tone, Ken says, “Rabid dogs.” John says: “I don’t know that part of the brain that shouts all these things you aren’t supposed to say in polite company, but that’s the part of the brain we speak to.” Ken: “People relate to the shouts. What differentiates us from a crazy man is that a lot of people agree with the shouts.” John: “The line we get all the time is, ‘You say exactly what I feel in the car!'” Then he laughs. “Some part of me always roots for chaos.”

And, as drivers sit in jams caused by the latest freeway sinkhole in Southern California, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou are still playing a role in California’s politics. The L.A. Times reported today that “Local politicians fear the conservative radio hosts of the “John & Ken Show” on KFI-AM (640).”

For an idea of why, visit their Web site, where the radio hosts issued one “Action Alert!” after another throughout the budget negotiations, imploring listeners to get on the phone to specific state legislators who expressed any willingness to raise taxes. A recent post on the site also declared:

This is War! Now it’s time to go to work. Call your Legislators and demand they vote no on this huge tax increase!

Contact details for state legislators were provided right after the declaration of “War!”

Most recently, the pair also issued what they called a “John and Ken fatwa” against Republicans who support tax increases and have been carrying on what they call a “heads on a stick” campaign against their opponents, including Mr. Schwarzenegger, who is himself a Republican. On the Web site, Mr. Schwarzenegger’s head is depicted impaled on a sword.

As a drive-time broadcast, the John and Ken Show has not aired yet today, but the show’s Web site also allows visitors the opportunity to listen live. Tune in later today to find out what populist outrage against the state’s budget compromise sounds like. But it will make more sense if you happen to be trapped in a traffic jam next to the sinkhole in Murrieta while you listen.

Update: Some of the cheering in response to California’s problems reminds us of what a character in Don DeLillo’s novel “White Noise” said about the state’s role in the media-saturated American imagination:

We need an occasional catastrophe to break up the incessant bombardment of information. …

Words, pictures, numbers, facts, graphics, statistics, specks, waves, particles, motes. Only a catastrophe gets our attention. We want them, we need them, we depend on them. As long as they happen somewhere else. This is where California comes in. Mud slides, brush fires, coastal erosion, earthquakes, mass killings, et cetera. We can relax and enjoy these disasters because in our hearts we feel that California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

For more on California’s problems, see the new discussion on The Times’ blog Room for Debate.

An amazing number of Californians want public services, but really don’t want to pay for them.

Back in 1978, voters passed Proposition 13, capping property taxes for current owners and requiring supermajorities for tax bills in the state legislature. My native state has been going downhill ever since.

The problems with California are Proposition 13 which subsidizes long time land owners, gerrymandered state districts which protects the radical right and left, and a supermajority required to pass a budget or taxes. All three need to be fixed or California will have perpetual budget problems.

I left California 40 years ago for destinations (and habitations) to the north and east. It was falling apart then and continues to do so.

Los Angeles was just too weird, even though I’d been born there, so northern Arizona and Oregon seemed better living spaces at the time … and finally upstate New York and, now, Massachusetts — not that New England’s *better than anywhere else, but it’s pretty darned nice, despite its snowfall, thank you very much.

An earthquake that would slide everything from the Sierra Nevadas west into the Pacific would be a big improvement.

California offers too much to its citizens and to its non-citizens. Its generous welfare payments, health care costs and education expenses for all the illegals have bankrupted the state. This bankruptcy has been predicted for years.

The liberal politics of California democrats have resulted in a shattered state. 4 Weeks of democrats controlling the US have resulted in a shattered country. Anybody surprised? The voters deserve what they get.

California is toast. Remember the Ter min a tor who rallied against the car tax. This guy is a bigger tax and spend liberal than Obama. How much did speding increase under the Ter min a tor. 40-50 BILLION if not more. Yep California is toast as well as the US of A. It’s over and there is no future

Populist outrage? If you live in one of the more conservative areas of the state, you might feel outrage that your attempt to bully the rest of California has basically failed. For the rest of us, we’re pretty tired of having a minority point of view dominate the state’s politics. We want a government that works, and it’s not working when 1/3 of the state’s representatives can hijack the entire governmental process.

Larger problems are at the root of California’s perennial budget crisis. The big one that never gets mentioned is that California gets only 78 cents back from every federal tax dollar it sends to Washington. In my view, that’s because we are woefully underrepresented in the Senate (taxation without representation, anyone?). Think about this: California and New York have over 30% of the nation’s population, and only 4 senators. The 26 smallest states have a little less than California and New York combined, and they have 52 senators. Anyone care to guess why California gets only 78 cents, while some smaller states get up to $2 for every federal tax dollar? We in California have to make up the difference with our state budget, and it’s getting worse every year as California’s economic success draws an ever greater population.

This won ‘t be the last we hear about Cali’s woes. The overall Repub demolition of a country in trouble will have it’s most visible and tangible effects in the western super state. In a nutshell what’s wrong with us that we allow ourselves to be corralled into these unbelievable situations. Why does Cali have such a huge deficit? I mean really why?

unions members regularly make 90,000 bucks a year. Firefighters can get 90% of income after retirement. Where does the money go? it doesn’t take two brains

we need a Republican revolution NOW. I want elimination of most sales tax, payroll tax, every tax except what funds essentials like repair and cops. Let’s break all union contracts and fire state employees when we must

That’s a Murietta sink hole that needs tax dollars to be fixed. Taxes keep our soldiers in uniform and armed, they keep roads, airports and ports open, It seems Americans want the services of government, but they want someone else to pay for them. Maybe the Chinese will step up and takeover… that’ll give John and Ken something to talk about.

Why don’t politicians call these people’s bluff and just shut down all state services? When anyone complains, point them to John and Ken, and Rep. Maldonado and let them deal with it. These guys love to rant and rave, but they never have any real solutions to problems – they’re like the college leftists of the 60’s….

Like many east coast papers, you look at California as one state. We are not. You have southern California lenses on. I don’t even know who these drive time radio people are. They aren’t on where I live, which is a pretty populated place. Maybe its hard to fathom a state that is as big and diverse as some 5-10 states put together and southern cal and northern California is as different as night and night. But we are a blue state nonetheless and, but what’s wrong with California is a microcosm of what will clearly become obvious is wrong with the country. We have a governor who wears a bipartisan hat, but we have the tyranny of the minority in some rabid republican quarters who don’t like or want anything but public service cuts and tax breaks against some of the biggest liberals in the country (my reps). Even the republican governor can’t get their logic. And then we have this huge criminal justice system that sucks away all tax payers money, but of course the republicans will pass some more 3 strikes laws as soon as the crime rates go up with the economic downturn.

The problem, in my view, is the entrenched disposable mentality. Didn’t like Gray Davis? Throw him out. Don’t like undocumented working immigrants? Throw them out too. Don’t want to bother looking at criminal cases on an individual basis? Throw them all into the penitentiary. Don’t want them to ever come out? Pass harsh Three Strikes Laws. They won’t come out, but is anyone concerned about the cost of housing them and paying the keepers? The CDC&R budget for about 200,000 prisoners is the same amount at the CSU budget for a million students. Where’s the ROI on that one, Republicans?

The earlier poster on the unions’ stranglehold is also correct. Can’t fire them; can’t get them to work.

I have lived in CA for 25 years, and I am still here–for now. I have built a good life, and wish the best for the rest, but I brought my talent to California. I am wondering how well we are doing in developing locally grown resources. Being in higher education, I can tell you the forecast is not promising. I was making a point today about recidivism (a college class in criminology) and asked the group to identify Nixon’s party affiliation. The overwhelming majority said “Democrat.”

The reason California is in the mess it’s in reflects the knee-jerk reaction to problem solving strategies that infests the entire system. It begins and ends with education, not a high priority here in CA. (BTW, how come no one was called to the bar to answer for the electricity grid scam?)

Besides all the spending/tax provisions, the budget compromise contained a last-minute addition that, if implemented, would dramatically alter California’s election system, endanger dozens of safe incumbents, boost moderates and potentially open the door to third parties: a two-round election system. This is a major story, and unfortunately somewhat under-covered. Details here.

Why can 15 people in a minority have the power to hold back a budget? It’s the 2/3rd majority rule, which the rabbid populism feeds into and makes work.

If a budget (and taxes) could pass with a 50% vote, that populism would become simply rhetoric. An ultimatum or “fatwa” from a talk show host would have little meaning if those 15 didn’t have a measure of control. State Senators could safely vote on party lines, and not have to worry about the talk show hosts.

Prop 13 did far, far more to our state government than limit property taxes. Safe in the knowledge of term limits and without the ever present threat of higher taxes, the bulk of the electorate could care less about government. Just the fatwa fridge and special interests run it now, because the two main issues that the middle can understand are “controlled” in the mind of the voter.

We destroyed the elements of the California Republic via Democracy. Isn’t that grand?

And since when did it take 60 votes to pass legislation in our federal Senate? The filibuster has become vastly distorted – it should go back to its orginal meaning and require those filibustering to actually hold the floor and talk all night. We’re pulling a California with that rule, by letting the minority to put the talk show host first.

Take away the power of the minority and both sides will fight of fairer terms. Hot air will simply be hot air, and the minority would not have to put their re-election at risk for deciding for themselves how to vote.

Californians have a greater tax rate than any other state, and it continues to climb. The state is bloated with overcompensated state employees, and we are inundated with close to 5% of Mexico’s work force here illegally who are draining the state coffers. Arnold is an embarrassment to the state while we have one of the most politically corrupt legislature in modern history. Paradise lost to be sure!

The reason so many John and Ken listeners are stuck in traffic is because these very same people refuse to vote for legislators who will pass taxes to fix the roads or, perish the thought, invest in public transportation.

Actually, CA is going to be just fine. We’ve all grown up with the sky falling on us every now and then for a while and we bounce back again and again. One thing that would be nice, though–we should give those in the ‘red counties’ of CA (the sparsely populated, conservative anti-tax, regions) what they want.

Currently, those regions get far more back in state services than they pay in state taxes, while the ‘blue counties’ (the densely populated, liberal pro-government, coastal regions) pay out far more in taxes than they get back (Marin, for example, pays the most per capita–$4000.00, but only gets back about $600.00, while the numbers are reversed in portions of the central valley.)

Lets give the red counties what they want: no taxes–and no state services, and let the blue counties keep the difference. It’d be an eye opener to all those ‘rabid dogs’ calling for the Gov’s head on a pike and it’d lower state income taxes overall.

The problem isn’t that we want public services without paying for them.

The problem is that our prison budget has become bloated beyond all reasonable proportions and nobody has the political courage to say so except Arnold.

But since it’s Arnold saying this, good luck getting Democrats to back him up.

People are being asked to go without health care and education for the sake of warehousing huge numbers of nonviolent offenders in a state prison system that is overcrowded and increasingly run by gangs.

However, the California public is not yet ready to give up on the idea that Paradise can be achieved by warehousing huge numbers of nonviolent offenders.

That’s why the prison guards union is the most powerful political force in the state, and why education and health care have to take hit after hit, with no letup in sight.

One of the above commenters nailed three of the four basic problems with California politics: 1) gerrymandering; 2) Prop 13; and 3) the supermajority requirement. The fourth is that California legislators now have term limits, which gives them less incentive to work across the aisle.

As a native Californian returned in 2007 after 12 years, I’m shocked at how LOW state tax rates are for a state with some of the best public Universities in the world. Reading G’s note above I’m confused.

G, what do you NOT want? Whose salaries do you want to reduce? Who will fix the potholes? Where w ill YOU get your clean energy, and how will YOU pay for it? The

By contrast BC has a better handle on the problem than G — We get what we pay for, and when we make short term decisions favored by rabble trousers (like those who got us into the Prop 13 Mess) without taking away the long-term services: Who needs schools or Universities when you have those two guys ranting on KHI in Los Angeles? And was it not Gov. Reagan himself at a UC Regents Meeting heard to mutter “Anthropology? Did they teach that when I was in college?

In other words, there is as noted in the main article a huge resentment from the hinterlands of California of that which makes California rich and strong — brains, or as the late Ted Bradshaw called it, “the knowledge intensive economy”.

Some of California’s problems are mirrored here in Washington State. In particular, rural Washington rails against “liberal Seattle” and all those tax and spend socialists. Mind you, it’s Seattle that drives the state’s economy, and tax revenue from the metro areas that provide the base for less-populated counties. All those supposedly self-sufficient Republican strongholds nationwide are in fact sinkholes into which “blue” America pours tax dollars. I have long proposed that the western halves of Washington, Oregon and California split to form one state, while the eastern halves form another. We’ll have Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and LA. They’ll have Spokane and Bakersfield. We’ll thrive, they’ll turn into a wasteland where sinkholes will be the rule rather than the exception. Republicans ran this country into the ground, now Democrats have to clean up the mess – while apparent extraterrestrials (such as #5 above) insist this is all Obama’s fault.

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